Public opinion is highly lopsided when it comes to weighing the work effort of immigrants versus whites — some 64% of adults in this country agree that immigrants work harder than whites at low-paying jobs, compared with just 26% who disagree. However, an even higher percentage of blacks — 75% — say that whites are out-worked by immigrants at low-wage jobs; just 61% of whites say the same thing. One pattern is consistent regardless of race: both whites and blacks are more likely to say that whites are outworked at low-wage jobs by immigrants than to say that blacks are out-worked at such jobs by immigrants. Public opinion on these questions hasn’t changed much since 1986, despite the fact that this country has experienced a heavy influx of immigrants, many of whom have come to work at low-wage jobs, in the past two decades. Read More

Topic
Whites
Russell Heimlich  is a former web developer at Pew Research Center.